March 31, 2011

Closing in on T50

Several years ago, I launched a project for my future learning and reference. I called it T50 which has to do with numbering out fifty thinkers whose works I would follow on my path to wisdom. Driving to work this morning I thought about those I have accumulated. You'll find them often cited here as regulars to Cobb would be familiar with most of their names. So here's the update in no particular order.

Christopher Hitchens

Thomas PM Barnett

Malcolm Gladwell

David P. Goldman

Iain M. Banks

Craig Venter

Niall Ferguson

Clay Shirky

Nicholas Nassim Taleb

Richard Fernandez

Steven Berlin Johnson

Michael Pollan

John Boyd

All of those are pretty much on the permanent list. I'll pretty much be assured to read every book they put out from now on. Then there is a secondary conditional kind of list of folks who are near, but in whom I may lose interest over time.

Nouriel Roubini

Dan Carlin

Victor Davis Hanson

Michael Totten

Gerard Van Der Luen

Danny Hillis

Stewart Brand

Daniel Pink

Dan Ariely

Then there is a pantheon of dead folks from whom I think I'll find something interesting, although that's harder to tell.

Spinoza

Karl Popper

OK well, basically Spinoza is all I can think of at the moment. Oh yeah and Popper. It's also interesting, I imagine to look at some of the folks I've consumed on my way to where I am now.

Cornel West

James Baldwin

bell hooks

Derrick Bell

Umberto Eco

Noam Chomsky

James Littel

Eugene ONeill

JL Borges

Carlos Fuentes

Robert Ludlum

Moliere

Ishmael Reed

Chinhua Achebe

K. Anthony Appiah

Hugh Hewitt

Martin Amis

TC Boyle

Nicholas Negroponte

The trail behind me is longer than the one in front of me for sure. And it's interesting to look back and speculate on what I thought I needed to know from each of those, what I got and how much it means to me now.

One of the more profound effects of T50 on me is that I have less patience for the interactivity of blogging, but that really started when I got interested in Ferguson and history a few years back. So I expect to continue to get less and less satisfaction from this kind of interaction and more from finding like-minded folks IRL at various meetups. One of these days I'm going to find the right clique - it will save me a lot of time and give me a great deal of comfort in reading away from the screen.

Comments

Closing in on T50

Several years ago, I launched a project for my future learning and reference. I called it T50 which has to do with numbering out fifty thinkers whose works I would follow on my path to wisdom. Driving to work this morning I thought about those I have accumulated. You'll find them often cited here as regulars to Cobb would be familiar with most of their names. So here's the update in no particular order.

Christopher Hitchens

Thomas PM Barnett

Malcolm Gladwell

David P. Goldman

Iain M. Banks

Craig Venter

Niall Ferguson

Clay Shirky

Nicholas Nassim Taleb

Richard Fernandez

Steven Berlin Johnson

Michael Pollan

John Boyd

All of those are pretty much on the permanent list. I'll pretty much be assured to read every book they put out from now on. Then there is a secondary conditional kind of list of folks who are near, but in whom I may lose interest over time.

Nouriel Roubini

Dan Carlin

Victor Davis Hanson

Michael Totten

Gerard Van Der Luen

Danny Hillis

Stewart Brand

Daniel Pink

Dan Ariely

Then there is a pantheon of dead folks from whom I think I'll find something interesting, although that's harder to tell.

Spinoza

Karl Popper

OK well, basically Spinoza is all I can think of at the moment. Oh yeah and Popper. It's also interesting, I imagine to look at some of the folks I've consumed on my way to where I am now.

Cornel West

James Baldwin

bell hooks

Derrick Bell

Umberto Eco

Noam Chomsky

James Littel

Eugene ONeill

JL Borges

Carlos Fuentes

Robert Ludlum

Moliere

Ishmael Reed

Chinhua Achebe

K. Anthony Appiah

Hugh Hewitt

Martin Amis

TC Boyle

Nicholas Negroponte

The trail behind me is longer than the one in front of me for sure. And it's interesting to look back and speculate on what I thought I needed to know from each of those, what I got and how much it means to me now.

One of the more profound effects of T50 on me is that I have less patience for the interactivity of blogging, but that really started when I got interested in Ferguson and history a few years back. So I expect to continue to get less and less satisfaction from this kind of interaction and more from finding like-minded folks IRL at various meetups. One of these days I'm going to find the right clique - it will save me a lot of time and give me a great deal of comfort in reading away from the screen.